Polk Transportation-impact Fees Arrive At Crossroads

Commissioners Likely Will Raise Them Soon, But The Topic Of Aiding Targeted Industries Is Still On The Table.

June 6, 2004|By Christopher Sherman, Sentinel Staff Writer

After months of haggling, Polk County commissioners will decide Wednesday how much to raise the county's transportation-impact fees, but the issue of softening the blow for targeted businesses will be temporarily unresolved.

Raising revenue for the roads needed to support an efficient local economy must be balanced against making Polk an attractive destination for businesses, economic development officials say.

Depending on the type of businesses considering Polk, the fees they pay for roads to support growth could increase by thousands of dollars.

It is a problem Osceola County wrestled with last year and earlier this year as it steeply raised its transportation-impact fees. As in Polk County, initially all of the attention was on how residential home builders would be affected, said Mike Horner, president of the Kissimmee/Osceola Chamber of Commerce.

"By the time we realized what the impact would be on business, the study was already released," he said.

The outcry from businesses was heard as some noted that fees for certain land uses would jump several times over. Osceola agreed to study local traffic for two land uses -- banks and day-care centers. The study resulted in lower fees for both, but the county said it would probably not pay for any more similar studies.

Businesses do have the option of commissioning their own study if they think it will result in a lower fee, Horner said.

"We're all trying to come up with a scenario where growth pays for itself," Horner said, but he does not want to risk losing higher-paying jobs to other counties.

Osceola devised a rebate program in which targeted industries producing warehouse and office jobs, among others, can receive as much as a 60 percent rebate on their impact fees during a five-year period. "We're trying to diversify our economy away from the hospitality industry," Horner said.

The current Polk road fee on residential and commercial construction reaps about $7.1 million annually for new road projects, accounting for less than 5 percent of the county's new road-construction budget. Increasing the fee to 50 percent of the maximum suggested by the consultant would bring in about $19.3 million annually.

Polk County Commissioner Paul Senft said the county's economic development agency, the Central Florida Development Council, has been gathering data from across the state on ways to protect efforts to attract targeted industries.

Factors could be how much total investment the company would make, how high its salaries would be and how many jobs would be created. One idea similar to Osceola's would include rebates available during a period of time if a business meets certain requirements, Senft said.

Any attempt to make exceptions to the fee for targeted businesses will require an amendment to the impact-fee ordinance, Senft said. Since that is not on the agenda for Wednesday's meeting, it will have to wait, but it will likely be discussed, he said.

"We need to be on a level playing field with competitor counties," Senft said.